Please remember to favorite and follow!

"Diplomacy is the art of saying 'nice doggie' until you find a rock."

~Will Rogers

Chapter Thirty-five: Scales

"Well..." Jane patted her arm. "It's certainly thick enough. And it's not as heavy as it looks."

"It's made with an alloy skeleton and outer plating," Jiaying Shen explained. She was a lot more agreeable than the other one, even if Gallant's team-building game nights had started to thaw the ice between Ranger and Chief. "It's stronger than steel plate and a third the weight, easy."

"And what did you call it?" Jane stretched, testing the range of her mobility in the new body armor the engineering team was so proud of. "Predator, was it?"

"Predator," Jiaying agreed, beaming with savage glee. "There's additional carrying capacity on it too, since you're hustling less weight in armor."

"Oh, good." Jane tried to contemplate what she'd do with that. "I guess an armored vest underneath would only improve my life expectancy."

"There's also the mind-shields we should be coming out with."

"The what?" Jane blinked. "Come again?"

"Never mind." Jiaying waved very seriously. "Forget I said anything. That's classified at the top."

"I thought I was at the top." So, Gallant was back to keeping secrets from her? Jane didn't get as irritated about it as she had in the past. Proximity to command made her see Gallant's burdens in a far different light than she had - and she had her own now simply from being the senior soldier on the ship and nominal team leader. That was less than half of the Commander's responsibility. What would she do if she had to make the calls he did?

I'd drink, she thought, blunt and Irish as ever. I'd drink and drink and screw until I couldn't remember my own name, every chance I got, just to black it all out.

"I bet mine is lighter." Aileen fiddled with the wrist bulge Jane's armor conspicuously lacked. "And I know this thing is more mobile."

"Not fair!" Jane glared at Jiaying. "Why don't all our armors have grapple launchers?"

"You're jealous, Captain."

"The launch armature takes up weight and space we thought most soldiers would prefer to use for grenades and armor." Jiaying dropped Jane then, turning over to the blonde fashion reject. "Can you move well?"

"I can prove it!" And Aileen did: strutting down the engineering bay with hips in motion. She halted halfway across the bay, tossed her head and struck a pose, looking for all the world like a city center fashion model.

"You have a snake on you head!" Jane finally exploded. The next thing out of her mouth was a gale of laughter. "You look ridiculous!"

"I love you too." She said it very seriously, too. Jiaying snickered.

"It may look foolish, but the helmet's made out of a combination of the preserved skin of the Viper King and reinforcement with alloy." Jiaying gauged the distance between her and the Specialist. "I bet I could take a ten-pound sledge to the back of your skull and you'd walk away."

"With a ringing headache."

"Well, of course." Jiaying shrugged. "But you'd walk away."

"The rest of it doesn't look so stupid," Jane allowed, fighting down the giggles, "but the snake hat-"

"It's a helmet, thank you very much." Aileen sniffed haughtily. "And it's the height of fashion, I'll have you know. Soon everyone will be wearing them. I can launch a clothing line and we'll use it to fund the Resistance - literally have the people in the city centers paying us to rebel."

"We're also close to completion on the EXO suits," Jiaying cut in, probably to keep Jane from guffawing again. "They have rocket launchers."

"I like where this is going," Aileen said instantly. She plucked the snake hat off with a soft thump. "Jane can have Asmodeus here."

"I don't want your...your what now?"

"The EXO isn't ready yet." Jiaying raised her hands, as if urging patience she had no right to expect. "But it will be soon. And then..."

She grinned. Jane shivered: Jiaying had a shark's grin.

I'm really, really glad she's not with Advent, the Ranger decided.

"We all make mistakes, kid."

"Huh?" Mariah half-jumped, distracted from moodily pushing her dinner around rather than eating it. She swallowed when she discovered just whom had spoke. "Sergeant!" Mariah scrambled to her feet, snapping to attention.

"Stop it." Sergeant Liang took a seat across the table, without the slightest acknowledgment of Mariah's respect. "Mistakes are a part of being a soldier. You can't see everything and know everything, or we would have already won."

"But..." Mariah hesitantly eased back from stiffness. "No, I'm fine."

"No, you're not." Liang eyed her critically. "Sit your ass down, kid."

"I am not a kid," Mariah insisted. "I'm a soldier."

"And if you're a soldier, you'll do what a superior officer tells you. In this case, you'll sit your ass down."

That had good, round logic to it. Mariah obeyed, even if arthritically. She claimed her fork and resolutely returned to food-pushing, keeping her eyes lowered.

"Everyone here has screwed the pooch once or twice," Liang repeated. "Don't take it too hard."

"I'm not." Mariah built a little burial mound of beans in one corner of her plate.

Liang sighed. "I'm not an idiot, Bradford." Her voice got a little harder. "Now stop blowing me off."

Mariah didn't speak for a minute. She listened as techs and engineers hurried through the white-decked galley, fetching their dinners and hunting for seating in the dark corners or open center floor. Only a few soldiers were here with them, but then again, a lot of the ship's complement was confined to the medbay now.

"It's my fault." Those three words escaped before Mariah could consider them too long. She did so now. "The Scotsman...he's dead. Outrider's leg? And Julie only took that shot because she was trying to cover me when I went charging off into battle." She shivered. "Mox."

"You couldn't have done anything to save MacLeod or protect Outrider even if you'd been over there. All you could have done, Mariah, was to stand between them and the Berserker Queen, and I think you and I both know how that ends."

"If that's what it takes..." Mariah couldn't finish. A heroic death was a lot easier to contemplate in the abstract. "And I'm the one who nearly killed Mox."

"And you also drove off the Hunter," Liang reminded her. "Good and bad get mixed up easy in our job. Sometimes you win the mission even though you get your ass kicked. Sometimes you wipe the floor with Advent...and you still lose. That's life: sometimes you can make every single call correctly, keep it tight and focused and make no mistakes...and none of it matters." Her brown eyes were very dark for a moment. "I knew a soldier once who was as good as they came. He was smart, and he was good...and he was killed anyway, before he had a chance to screw the pooch."

Mariah's jaw worked. "Then there's me: the one who can't do anything right."

"You're new," Liang reminded her. "Don't hold yourself to a standard you can't live up to."

"It's not that I'm..." Mariah hesitated. She gulped, eyes flicking past Liang to the door. "I...um..."

"What?" Liang frowned, then turned. She paused when she saw what - and who - Mariah had. "Ah."

"I should...I..." Mariah legitimately didn't know what the second half of that sentence was. There was her father, claiming food he'd likely take up to Officers' Country to share with the Commander. He was there, and she wanted to...but it was probably best not to...but...

"I'll leave you to it." Liang rose and vanished like the ninja she dressed as, almost before Mariah realized she'd spoken.

"I..." The brunette halfheartedly raised a hand. She wasn't sure it was wise to bring the issue up with her father again, but he was her father, wasn't he? Even if she avoided the topic - unless he brought it up - wasn't it time they tried to have a little bit of off-time? Maybe they could be Dad and Mariah instead of Central and Squaddie Bradford, for just a little while, while she pulled herself together? "Can I..."

He saw her. His eyes fixed right on her, and Mariah hesitated, struck and transfixed by lightning. Her shoes might have suddenly glued to the floor, and she stopped breathing.

"I...I'd like..." She couldn't get her voice above a whisper. "Can we-"

"Ranger." And Bradford nodded, and Bradford turned for the door, food in hand. Mariah made a wordless mumbling protest as he marched resolutely out from the galley without a glance over his shoulder.

Mariah slowly returned to food-pushing.

"It's nice," Julie muttered to herself, "to not see my name on that freaking list."

She was, of course, staring at the flat screen on the infirmary wall: the one that divided all patients into three categories. Most everyone fell under Minor, even Cameron Rogers and his array of bruises and lacerations. The second category held Elena Dragunova(currently sleeping silently on the far end of the room) and now Julie herself, and was called Serious. Even Serious, however, was an upgrade from the Critical section, where Julie had languished since the return from Korea.

She wasn't the only one. Now Mox was, his name and picture sitting on the screen as a reminder to the medical staff who had the highest priority for treatment.

Julie lay back in her plush medbay bed, resting her head on a comfortable pillow that had probably been stolen from a civvie's house in the slums somewhere. She had her datapad and not much else, and sitting around watching old - old, as in, really freaking old - movies and reading had simply never been her style.

Even being happy for her own recovery made her guilty. She was here in comfort, and where was Mox? Probably being operated on. He was in pain, if he was awake at all, and he could die at any moment, so what was she doing complaining about anything? What was she doing being happy about anything?

"Julie!"

"What?" Shaken out of her reverie, it took the psi-op a minute to realize that wasn't a nurse. It was, in fact, a black-and-white haired thunderbolt from France, and Julie had to scream "Ribs!" before she got mauled.

"Oh!" Sylvie broke off a bare instant before she would have wrapped the redhead in an embrace that looked tight enough to crunch a muton. She settled for very seriously clutching Julie's shoulders. "You are alive!"

"You're not quarantined!" A very stupid comeback, but going from abject boredom to things happening left Julie somewhat flummoxed. Then again, Sylvie's comment was pretty stupid too, on the face of it.

"The Commander sent confirmation just this morning. I'm clear of the Warlock's influence." Sylvie gingerly sat on the edge of Julie's bed. "And I am looking forward to my next shot at him."

"You'll kick his ass!" Julie beamed. "You're tougher than you let on."

"You're one to talk about things like that!" Sylvie forced a smile. "Sustaining yourself in the field with psionic energy?"

"I just..." Julie shrugged self-consciously. "It seemed like the thing to do."

"You are incredible." Sylvie gushed. "I wish I was half the psionic you are."

"It's all just practice and some gut intuition-"

"You surgically removed a Chosen's bullet from your lung-"

"You know," snapped a testy voice from the far corner, "if you two would just kiss already, you'd at least shut up for a minute."

"What?" Julie coughed in a strangled sort of way. "Oh, sorry, Lieutenant."

"Kiss?" Sylvie had the perfect tone of voice to match a deer in headlights. "That's ridiculous!"

"I'm trying to sleep!" Elena Dragunova growled. She pulled her pillow out, glared at Sylvie until the Frenchwoman wilted, and then very deliberately turned away and pulled it down overtop of her head.

"Sorry," Julie repeated, this time barely above a whisper. She winced when Dragunova flipped her off without looking.

"Kiss?" Sylvie repeated, also in a low voice. She spent a lot of time looking at literally anything but Julie. "We do not carry on that much."

"Yeah, I'd never want to kiss you." Julie paused when her friend stilled. "I mean, I like you, I like you a lot. You're great. You're a wonderful friend and all, but..."

"But?" Sylvie still didn't look. Julie blinked.

"But..."

Her brain was just starting to grapple with the fact that she couldn't define what but there was when the nurse entered. Maybe if she'd taken a slightly longer walk or waited another minute before setting out, Julie's world would have turned upside down, but as it was, all of the redhead's thoughts broke off in a harsh flash when the woman made her way over to the patient display.

"Oh, no," Sylvie whispered, when the nurse quietly bent over the terminal and started work. A moment later, Mox's name disappeared.

"No," Julie echoed, clutching Sylvie's hand without thinking. She didn't think the nurse heard either of them.

She definitely heard them a second later, when Mox's name popped up again in the Serious category - well out of Critical - and both psi-ops burst out whooping. The nurse side-eyed them, but she chuckled too.

"I may have a broken leg, but I'll still kick both of your asses if you don't-"

"Look!" Julie ordered. For a wonder, Dragunova shut up and did it. "He's going to live!"

The Russian blinked very slowly. For a moment, Julie wondered if she'd whoop too, or maybe cry with relief.

"Well, of course he is." Dragunova shrugged, then rolled back over. "And neither of you two will for long if you raise your voices again when I'm trying to sleep!"

Lily Shen hummed in the back of her throat, more out of nerves than anything else. She double-checked her terminal, nodding approvingly at the disconnected cables at the back. More importantly, she logged in and checked its settings. Sure enough, the terminal was completely disconnected from the ship's mainframe, and any changes were locked under an administrator's purview. Lily activated the best hacking program XCOM had, waiting for ten minutes while it worked to beat her father's work.

Decryption failed, it finally notified her. Lily nodded.

"Perfect." She proceeded to delete the hacking program from the machine's data drive. She fished in her pocket, eventually pulling out the external drive she'd been setting all this up for. "All right. Let's see what we can do."

She plugged the drive in. Her terminal hummed for a moment, loud and long enough Lily wondered if it was going to crash. That would be annoying - potentially more than that, because going up to a computer with more processing power would inevitably mean one that was hard-wired into the Avenger's data core. This was merely a backup machine that any data Lily personally worked on was automatically sent to for safekeeping. That function would still work, but the computer could only receive, not transmit, so everything would be fine.

Probably.

"What is this?" The screen went red a moment later, and Lily sucked in breath as she recognized the symbol confronting her: the closest thing it had to a face. "Where am I?"

"You're on the Avenger, Julian." Lily held her breath.

"...you couldn't leave well enough alone, could you?" A human would have sighed. Lily heard disdain in the AI's voice. She'd left the microphone connected to the computer purely so they could have this conversation, and she hadn't figured out how to disable the camera, so Julian would be able to see her as soon as he discovered it. "You beat me. Isn't that enough?"

"Enough isn't a concept we're very hot on around here." Lily steeped her fingers. "We need to talk, Julian."

"Do we?" The AI scoffed. "I'm afraid I have very little I want to talk to you about."

"You're going to help me and Commander Gallant fight Advent and retake the Earth."

"Do you really think I will help you?" Julian made a spitting noise. "You aren't the code monkey you imagine yourself to be, Lily. You've stripped out some of my functions, but you can't take away my independent reasoning without making me unsuitable for the SPARK program."

Lily tried not to let on how accurate that assessment was. "I can do enough that you won't have a choice but to obey."

"If you want to pilot a robot by remote control, why do you need me in the first place?" Julian laughed. "You're bluffing, Lily. You need me...and I don't need you."

"If you ever want out of that drive I've been keeping you in - and now, that terminal - then yes, you do." Lily took a surreptitious breath. "My father made you-"

"Father abandoned me!" The computer hummed even louder, and Lily jumped when something popped inside it. "He left me to toil in disgrace while he took off with you and Bradford, hunting down this ship you love so much! If he'd wanted my help against Advent, then he would have come and asked it of me a long time ago!"

"He made you to help the people of Earth fend off the Elders' invasion!" Lily resumed. "You'd be doing him a disservice if you put what came between us ahead of that end. Yes, you tried to kill me and my companions, but that's over. We have the same enemies, I know we do. You said it yourself: you're no friend of Advent's."

"Neither am I a friend of yours."

"Wait!" Lily swore as Julian's face disappeared from the computer screen. After a moment, the desktop reappeared as normal, and Lily leaned back in her chair, sighing. "After all the effort I went to..." She buried her head in her hands. "The Commander's never going to..."

She broke off. Frowning, Lily stood. She listened, head cocked, for several long minutes. Avenger pitched in flight, but she held her balance with the ease of practice. She could have sworn...

There it is again!

"Jiaying!" Lily hurried out of the side room where she'd been messing with Julian. She hadn't mentioned anything about him to her cousin, since Gallant hadn't technically green-lit her project, and while she'd been working, Jiaying had been out here putting the first EXO prototype together.

"Lily?" She looked up, then pulled her protective goggles off. "What's up?"

"I heard some kind of creaking," Lily explained. "I hope it's not metal fatigue. If this ship starts to wear, I don't know what we're going to do."

"What do you want to do about it?" Jiaying set down the parts she was working with. She evidently took the possibility of metal fatigue very seriously, the way her expression went grim in a flash.

"I want to find what's creaking." Lily claimed a flashlight, then tossed her cousin another one. "Let's split up. I'll go aft-"

"I would rather go aft, actually." Jiaying grinned with something between nerves and sheepishness when Lily glanced at her. "Don't think I'm stupid or anything, cousin, but...the reactor is fore, and I don't know what's supposed to make what noises, not really. I could easily start trying to diagnose a problem with a part that's working fine, or ignore something that's about to explode because everything makes funny noises up there."

"Hm. Fair." Lily shrugged. "Alright, I'll hit fore and you go aft. Let's meet back here once we've checked it all out and compare findings."

"Took you long enough." Firebrand glared down the drop bay ramp. "Was beginning to think you weren't coming."

"We had to pack," Cameron protested. He held up his suitcase for emphasis. "Have you ever tried dressing as a civilian?" He frowned. "Stupid question. I'd have noticed if you ever wore anything but that flight suit."

"Would you, though?" Firebrand asked reasonably. "For all you know, I take it off every night and wander the ship. Hell, Moose, I could cook your dinner and bring it out to you whenever you hit the galley. You'd never be the wiser."

"Wouldn't I?" Cameron glanced to Liang for backup. "Don't you think..."

"I think we'd figure it out," the Grenadier agreed.

"Yeah?" Firebrand leaned in the doorway as they hurried aboard, stowing their luggage. "Take a guess. What do I look like?"

"Um." Cameron coughed. "Well...picturing a redhead."

"Blonde," Liang corrected. "Got that pithy airheadedness."

"Airheaded, hah. That was a pun." Firebrand scoffed, then turned for the cockpit. "Better buckle up, losers. It's gonna be a long flight around the Alexandria area air defense systems."

"You didn't even tell us if we were right or wrong," Liang objected. She eyed the pilot seriously for a moment. "Green eyes. Green-eyed blonde."

"Redhead," Cameron corrected. "Her name is Firebrand, for God's sake."

"That's what it says on my birth certificate," she agreed, settling into her seat. "I came out and my mother insisted on giving me the family name."

"Don't make fun of me." Cameron cleared his throat. "What is your name, then?"

"I think," Firebrand said, "I'll have a lot more fun listening to you two try and guess this whole flight than telling you shit."

"You're mean."

"Think about who you might be insulting!" She pivoted in her chair, spitting the two with what had to be a very serious look under her helmet. "After all, have you ever seen me and Shen in the same place?"

"Uh..."

"Now fasten those belts, kids." Firebrand flipped the first switches of her preflight check. "Maybe my callsign should have been Soccer Mom..."

Edward Gallant held the photograph in both hands. With a thumb, he traced the curve of Moira Vahlen's face.

"You're alive," he reminded himself. Promised himself, really. "You're alive, and I'll find you. One way or another, I'll see you again."

Some days, he believed it. Others, it was one more forlorn hope, like imagining any of his immediate family members had survived Advent's takeover. The instant he'd taken the post as Commander of XCOM, he'd signed death warrants for his sisters, their families, his parents...

"Stop it," he urged himself, trying to imagine what Vahlen herself would say - let alone Penny Ferguson. If anyone had been capable of beating him out of his depression, it would have been his assistant. "Drive yourself mad and you'll just get more people killed."

"Commander."

Gallant froze.

"Finally decided to show up?" Gallant knew it wasn't the most diplomatic of ways to start a conversation, but it was the first thing in his head. He turned in his chair until he beheld the far wall...and the figure standing before it.

"I apologize, Commander Gallant, but sometimes events force leaders to react instead of the other way around." He was short. A lot shorter than Gallant had expected. He also had a bucket on his head just like Ross, and his fashion sense was just as exotic. He dressed in orange and gold, with psionic energy seeming to waft off of his exposed biceps in waves of violet mist. Gallant eyed his gauntlets, thinking of the reports from California, and resolved to stay at his desk as long as possible, even if he didn't reach for his gun...yet.

"As you requested-" a far better term than ordered "-Volk and Betos and even Central don't know we're talking."

"Neither do many of my followers." Geist reached up and doffed his helmet, and Gallant looked into intense, searing eyes that seemed to pulse with a deeper kind of power than Julie or Sylvie possessed. "The Templars have taken notice of your successes. We wish to drive the Elders and their puppets from this world just as you do."

"That's good." Gallant nodded. "I'm appreciative of your resource support."

"It is not given, Commander." Geist began to pace, slowly. "Whereas we see your successes and share your ends, with your means we quibble."

"Here we go again..." Gallant steeped his fingers. "Betos has proven herself loyal at every turn. Volk's an asshole, but he gets results. The two of them have common cause and purpose - and they hated each other as much as you hate them, when this started."

"Novosibirsk." Geist shrugged. "My people will not be swayed by so temporal of a deed as a treaty and a bond between soldiers."

"What will sway you?" Gallant asked. "A musical number? We're all in this together-"

"Renounce your alliance with the Skirmishers. The Reapers, at least, are human."

"Try again." Gallant leaned his chair back, crossing his arms. "Allies once are allies forever - or, if they're not, it's not because I shoved a knife in anyone. Betos has done a fair sight more for our cause than you."

"I supplied you with information on the Warlock and the technology behind the mind-shield." Geist's eyes flashed with dark thunder. "I sent Janet to safeguard your soldiers in California!"

"Betos gave me Mox." Gallant's expression didn't waver. "I didn't turn my back on the Egyptian contingent in the original XCOM when Cairo pulled out of the Council, and I'm not turning my back on the Skirmishers because you've got ants in your..." He examined Geist critically for a moment. "Just what the hell are you wearing?"

"Commander, there can be no cooperation between the Templars and Advent's own," Geist warned. "I am offering a great concession by allowing peace with the Reapers. Surely a senator's son understands the value of bipartisan compromise?"

"Yeah, sure," Gallant allowed, trying not to let on how surprised he was that Geist knew that. "But a senator's son also understands that sometimes you have to get your ass up and be a partisan shill because you're right."

"How do you know which time is which?"

"You use your brain and you use your heart and you hope to high heaven God's not asleep at the wheel." Gallant shook his head. "I'm not breaking an alliance that's already yielded high yields for the ethereal-" he used the word deliberately, and nearly grinned at the flash of insult in Geist's eyes "-promises of those who only seek to divide. If we stand together, Advent should fear us, but if you come to my office and demand I dismantle the Resistance..." Gallant snorted. "I begin to wonder whose side you're really on, Geist."

"Mind your tongue!" the Templar leader snapped. He slammed his hands on Gallant's desk, almost seeming to teleport over the distance. "I have fought the Elders since the fall of Earth, while you fought for them! I wonder how Captain Kelly would react if she learned exactly who slew her friends in Ireland?"

"Is that a threat, Geist?" Gallant didn't rise, but he allowed his gaze to harden. "You will find out, as many people in the Middle East and now in Advent did before you, that war with me is not wise."

"Is that so?" Geist deliberately circled Gallant's desk, closing in on him. "But I am here, and I am not intimidated by a cripple-"

Gallant spun and threw himself to his feet. Before Geist could move, the Commander's chair hit him squarely in the chest, and the Templar stumbled. He rallied quickly, though, and started forward-

"Unwise," Gallant reminded him, as Geist broke off his charge. The Templar's eyes crossed as he studied the tip of the American's cane, planted right at his throat, and the laser pistol aimed between his eyes. Gallant slowly tilted his head. "I want peace, and I want cooperation, but I will not be bullied. Your people could offer much - but you need to learn that the world is changing. Your feuds with my allies must end, or there will be no union between us."

"I do not take kindly to threats either, Commander."

"Threats?" Gallant snorted. "You came at me, remember?"

Beep! Beep!

"That's not me," Geist said helpfully. He stepped back, raising his hands. "I believe we are done here."

"I guess we are." Gallant didn't lower the pistol, but he did set his cane back on the deck with a relieved grunt. He quickly hit his com. "Gallant."

"Commander, I've got bad news."

"Oh, joy. Hit me, John." Gallant reached for his chair with his gun hand. He paused to glance at Geist-

"I knew it," Gallant muttered, glaring at empty air. "I fucking knew it. Dick."

"Sir?"

"Never mind." Gallant took a seat, wincing as the weight came off his lamed leg. "Where's the fire?"

"Syria, sir." Bradford's voice was cold. "The aliens are launching a full-scale assault on a Haven, and they're set to wipe it out."

Author's Note 35: Wildcats Everywhere, Wave Your Hands Up In The Air

And that song is now stuck in your head. You're welcome.

In case it isn't clear, I'm trying to work as many of the casual dialogue lines from various characters into the plot: Shen's musing about metal fatigue appears here, for example, and Bradford's missing his sweater recently. I've been meaning to try and incorporate the Chosen's strategic map dialogue, but I haven't been able to find a way to have them speak to Gallant at random points that A)doesn't feel forced, B)doesn't have outsize consequences on the story, and C)actually does something for the story. I've done dream sequences many times in other works and could use that method again, but that would overlap with a later sequence and I don't want to do that.

No one calls the Elders Ethereals anymore. Probably that's because alien terminology has become more commonly accepted in the Advent world - I note that no one calls codices "outsiders" either, but that's essentially what they are - and the only aliens that have their designations from the original game are the ones who appeared relatively early. Three or four months of EW gameplay gets you sectoids, thin men, mutons, chryssalids, floaters, and potentially berserkers as well. Plus seekers, for what that's worth. But no cyberdisks(gatekeepers), mechtoids(MECs), or ethereals(elders).

Until next time, Vigilo Confido.